Family trees are messy.
Roots sift and weave detritus,
absorb the chaos
of complicated relationships,
multiple marriages,
mistakes,
rivalry and rebellion,
front door slams,
late night calls from out of state.
Beneath the simple surface
of stand alone trees in the sky
is a network of careful mingling
collaboration of multitudes,
microbes that know how to convert
the inorganic parts.
A family was never just nuclear.
It is the power of fission,
heaven’s first big bang
that mushroomed below to a tangled web—
a pattern without a pattern.
A tree of life embraces its neighbors,
holding hands beneath the table,
interlocking, nourishing, stabilizing,
pushing out all manner of fruits.
How many Heavenly Mothers,
Fathers,
fit in eternity?
How many generations
can be grafted in?
And they (the Gods)
went down in the beginning, to prove
that eternal family is more a forest
than a tree.
D&C 130:2, Abraham 4
Christopher grew up in Raymond, Alberta and loves plants and big skies. His childhood was an ongoing nature walk, and very little has changed since then. His faith is heavily influenced by the diversity he finds in the natural world. The more he learns about creation, the more he believes that God must be somebody totally cool. He majored in English at Brigham Young University, with a minor in Women’s Studies. Christopher then went on to graduate as a registered nurse from the University of Lethbridge and currently works with seniors as a home care case manager. He is married to his high school crush and will gush to anyone who listens about his 5 children. He likes them even more than plants. Besides plants and poetry, Christopher also has a lifelong obsession with molluscs.